Waking in a Modern World

[IsabellaRose]

The quiet hum of fluorescent lights presses against the edges of your awareness. You open your eyes and look around. The room around you is plain and unadorned. Rows of stiff, vinyl chairs line the walls, each spaced precisely apart. A low table sits in the center, stacked neatly with outdated magazines that have been thumbed through enough times to leave the corners curled and folded. The artificial coolness of recycled air conditioning barely moves across your skin.

You don’t remember walking in. You don’t remember sitting down. The last thing you remember is falling, falling into the ruins in eastern Morocco, and yet, here you are, in a waiting room with no other visitors, and no clue what you’re waiting for. 

The walls are painted a dull off-white, the kind that seems deliberately designed to be forgettable. A single door stands opposite you, closed, its frosted window revealing nothing beyond. There’s a clock, its second hand sweeping steadily along, but you don't know if it's eight-thirty in the morning or at night. You feel time crawling over your skin, stretching unbearably. You shift in your seat, the material creaking under your weight. Nothing else moves. The window where a receptionist might sit is closed, its frosted glass impossibly opaque.

Then, with a metallic sliding sound, the reception window opens.

The receptionist leans forward, her posture impeccable, her crisp white shirt unwrinkled. Her eyes meet yours with a practiced, unreadable calm. A polite, professional smile tugs at her lips. She glances at something on the desk, just out of your sight beneath the window, and then speaks in a smooth, almost rehearsed voice. 

• If the receptionist says, "Doctor Ross will see you now, Miss Hastings," click here. <link forthcoming>
• If the receptionist says, "Mister Drake is ready for your interview, Miss Hastings," and gives you a jealous look, click here. <link forthcoming>
• If the receptionist says, "You're the last audition, please come in, Miss Hastings," and looks you up and down appraisingly, click here.
• If the receptionist says, "Principal Markham is ready for you now, Miss Hastings," and gives you a disapproving expression, click here. <link forthcoming>
• If the receptionist says, "Miss Harcourt is available now, Detective Hastings," and slips you her phone number with a wink, click here. <link forthcoming>
• If the receptionist says, "Step in, strip off your civvies, place them in the box, and wait until you're called," with a look of clinical detachment, click here.

Edited February 11 by IsabellaRose